Hafiz Saeed’s aide Abdul Rehman Makki, designated global terrorist, dies in Lahore

Abdul Rehman Makki was being treated at a private hospital in Lahore for diabetes when he died “due to a heart attack”

NEW DELHI: Abdul Rehman Makki, the brother-in-law of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed and designated a global terrorist by the US and the UN following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, died in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Friday.

Abdul Rehman Makki was frequently seen with HafizSaeed addressing gatherings where he called for jihad against India in the name of Kashmir till Pakistani authorities began cracking down on the LeT (File Photo)

Makki, ill for the past few days, was being treated at a private hospital in Lahore for diabetes when he died “due to a heart attack”, according to a statement from the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), a front for the LeT.

Proficient in Arabic and English, he assumed the nom de plume Makki after graduating from Umm al-Qura University in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. More an ideologue and fund-raiser, he was for long associated with the LeT’s political wing and became head of the political affairs department in 2008, when the group carried out the brazen terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Like Saeed, Makki was never charged by Pakistani authorities for his alleged role in the Mumbai attacks. It was only after the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the West mounted pressure on Pakistan for failing to rein in the activities of terror groups that Saeed and Makki were named in a string of terror financing cases in Pakistan’s Punjab province in recent years.

The JuD statement described Makki as a “strong voice for the oppressed Kashmiris and Palestinians” but to Indian security officials he was a key player in the higher echelons of the LeT. In 2020, India added Makki to the list of wanted terrorists under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for his role as the head of the LeT’s political affairs wing and foreign relations department and in raising funds for the group.

While the US designated Makki as a global terrorist in November 2010, saying he gave he gave $248,000 to a LeT training camp and $165,000 to a LeT-affiliated madrassa, efforts to sanction him at the UN Security Council were stymied by China, which placed a so-called “technical hold” on the matter.

After China lifted the “technical hold”, Makki was sanctioned by the UN Security Council’s ISIL and al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, also known as the 1267 committee, for his role in “financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating” a series of terror attacks, ranging from the 2000 Red Fort attack to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The US, which offered a bounty of $2 million for information on Makki under its Rewards for Justice programme, continued to press Islamabad for information on the LeT leader even after he was convicted and sentenced to prison by a Pakistani court in 2020 “because the Pakistani judicial system has released convicted LeT leaders and operatives in the past”.